Writing Avoidance: A Professional Approach

Counselors, perhaps wore than most other professionals, practice writing avoidance. This article suggests a functional avoidance system based on empirically validated methodologies. A step-by-step method is proposed as well as ways to handle inevitable pressures and paradoxes.     

Topics and cases for online education in engineering

When considering offering online education for engineering ethics instruction, making choices necessary for the effective development and delivery of an engineering ethics curriculum is an important first step. Selecting the topics and types of cases for the most effective ethics education of engineering students is a vital step in preparing an effective program. Examples are presented for topics which are considered good candidates for online presentation, and the adaptability of these topics for web-based instruction is discussed. Types of cases which are useful in engineering ethics education are presented. Methods of teaching applied ethics, as well as ideas for web-based ethics course design are suggested. The market for web-based instruction is discussed.     

Perceptions of Private Market Landlords Who Rent to Tenants of a Housing First Program

The rental of housing units by landlords to participants in Housing First (HF) programs is critical to the success of these programs. Therefore, it is important to understand the experiences of landlords with having these individuals as tenants. The paper presents findings of qualitative interviews with 23 landlords who rented to tenants from a HF program located in a small city and adjoining rural area in eastern Canada and in which approximately 75 % of tenants had been housed for at least six consecutive months at 2 years in the program. Findings showed that landlords are motivated to rent to HF tenants for financial and pro‐social reasons. They reported holding a range of positive, neutral, and negative perceptions of these tenants. They identified problems encountered with some HF tenants that included disruptive visitors, conflict with other tenants, constant presence in their apartments, and poor upkeep of units. On the other hand, landlords perceived HF tenants as being mostly good tenants who are similar to their other tenants. Implications for practice in the context of HF programs are discussed.     

Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapies for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Review of Methods to Improve Treatment Engagement and Self-Efficacy

Cognitive rehabilitation therapies for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are becoming more readily available to the geriatric population in an attempt to curb the insidious decline in cognitive and functional performance. However, people with AD may have difficulty adhering to these cognitive treatments due to denial of memory deficits, compromised brain systems, cognitive incapacity for self-awareness, general difficulty following through on daily tasks, lack of motivation, hopelessness, and apathy, all of which may be either due to the illness or be secondary to depression. Cognitive rehabilitation training exercises are also labor intensive and, unfortunately, serve as a repeated reminder about the memory impairments and attendant functional consequences. In order for cognitive rehabilitation methods to be effective, patients must be adequately engaged and motivated to not only begin a rehabilitation program but also to remain involved in the intervention until a therapeutic dosage can be attained. We review approaches to cognitive rehabilitation in AD, neuropsychological as well as psychological obstacles to effective treatment in this population, and methods that target adherence to treatment and may therefore be applicable to cognitive rehabilitation therapies for AD. The goal is to stimulate discussion among researchers and clinicians alike on how treatment effects may be mediated by engagement in treatment, and what can be done to enhance patient adherence for cognitive rehabilitation therapies in order to obtain greater cognitive and functional benefits from the treatment itself.     

Collaborative Theater/Collective Artist: An Evolving Systems Case Study in Social Creativity

Theater production is a collaborative creative activity. Social creativity recognizes the relationships between creative groups and the contexts in which creativity emerges. It also suggests that the interactive processes between the collaborators and their work form a center, which in turn becomes a kind of creative entity itself. An evolving systems case study of production practices at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival illuminates this process and illustrates the differences between seeing an aggregate creative activity and the more holistic view, in which the artwork functions like another person, a creature in dialogue with the personality of the creative system.     

On the Consistency of Q-Matrix Estimation: A Rejoinder

This rejoinder responds to the commentary by Liu (Psychometrika, 2015) entitled “On the consistency of Q-matrix estimation: A commentary” on the paper “A general method of empirical Q-matrix validation” by de la Torre and Chiu (Psychometrika, 2015). It discusses and addresses three concerns raised in the commentary, namely the estimation accuracy when a provisional Q-matrix is used, the consistency of the Q-matrix estimator, and the computational efficiency of the proposed method.     

Higher-order latent trait models for cognitive diagnosis

Higher-order latent traits are proposed for specifying the joint distribution of binary attributes in models for cognitive diagnosis. This approach results in a parsimonious model for the joint distribution of a high-dimensional attribute vector that is natural in many situations when specific cognitive information is sought but a less informative item response model would be a reasonable alternative. This approach stems from viewing the attributes as the specific knowledge required for examination performance, and modeling these attributes as arising from a broadly-defined latent trait resembling theϑ of item response models. In this way a relatively simple model for the joint distribution of the attributes results, which is based on a plausible model for the relationship between general aptitude and specific knowledge. Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for parameter estimation are given for selected response distributions, and simulation results are presented to examine the performance of the algorithm as well as the sensitivity of classification to model misspecification. An analysis of fraction subtraction data is provided as an example. This research was funded by National Institute of Health grant R01 CA81068. We would like to thank William Stout and Sarah Hartz for many useful discussions, three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions, and Kikumi Tatsuoka and Curtis Tatsuoka for generously sharing data.     

Workers' compensation for law enforcement related post traumatic stress disorder

The questions of how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) manifests itself among police officers and their eligibility to receive workers' compensation for PTSD are explored. The nature of the police officer's occupation, the prevalence of stress-related disorders among police personnel, and the relationship of the police personality to the dynamics of the way stress is manifested are considered. The extent to which workers' compensation statutes in various states cover mental injuries is also examined, and the variables that may affect the outcome of an officer's receiving compensation for PTSD are discussed. Finally, implications for mental health professionals who testify as expert witnesses in cases dealing with police stress, as well as those who work in the assessment and treatment ofpolice personnel, are explored.